Welcome to the deep dive. I am your host and
I am really excited to get into today's topic.
If you are joining us today, you are likely someone
who possesses an intense curiosity about the
world. Absolutely. I'm your resident expert for
this deep dive, and I completely agree. Our listeners
are the type of people who want to understand
the mechanics of things. Right, exactly. You
want to stay informed. You want to continuously
learn. But you probably also know that very specific,
very exhausting feeling of being completely overwhelmed
by information overload. Oh, it is such a heavy
burden. It really is. I mean, you are constantly
trying to drink from a fire hose of new data,
new articles, new methodologies, and frankly,
It can feel. and what can feel just impossible
to keep up. It is a very real modern predicament.
We all want to be competent in our respective
fields, but the sheer volume of information we
are expected to process on a daily basis is staggering.
It demands a completely different cognitive strategy
than the one most of us were taught in school.
Yeah, that structural shift is exactly what we're
focusing on today. We have a really fascinating
piece of source material to guide us. It is a
blog post from the year 2020. A very interesting
era for education, too. Totally. It was written
by Dr. Gary L. Ackerman on his website, which
is called Hack Science Education. The title of
the post is Education for Information -Rich Fields.
It is a concise piece of writing, but it packs
a significant philosophical punch regarding how
we actually acquire and process knowledge. It
forces us to look at the architecture of our
own learning habits and ask if they are, well,
actually built for the modern world. Right. So
our mission for today's Deep Dive is to explore
Dr. Ackerman's core argument. We want to understand
why the traditional old school uh, fill their
brains approach to learning is fundamentally
breaking down in modern dynamic fields. It really
is breaking down. It is. And we need to look
at how you, yes, you, listening right now, must
entirely shift the way you approach learning
if you want to actually succeed and not just,
you know, drawing in data. Okay, let's unpack
this. Let us begin where Dr. Ackerman begins,
which is with a very familiar, highly recognizable
scenario. I know this one. Right. He describes
a specific type of teacher or instructor. We
have all encountered this person in our academic
or professional lives. It is the educator who
insists, and I'm quoting from the text here,
but my field is content rich. I need to cover
all of this so that students are ready for next
year. We have absolutely all had that teacher.
Everyone has. The one who acts like if they don't
verbally speak every single fact of the syllabus
out loud in the classroom, the students will
somehow be, I don't know, doomed in their future
careers. There's a palpable anxiety in that approach.
There is. And what is crucial to understand here
is that Dr. Ackerman is not condemning this educator's
character. In fact, he explicitly points out
that this attitude is grounded in a sincere,
genuine interest. They aren't trying to be difficult.
Exactly. This teacher genuinely wants their students
to know what they should know. They are operating
from a place of deep professional care. They
really want to set their students up for success
in a rigorous environment. Right. The intention
is great. But the execution is where the disaster
happens. Because that desire to cover absolutely
everything results in what the author calls the
fill their brains with information approach to
teaching. Which just doesn't scale. It doesn't
scale at all. It is like, okay, think about...
trying to pack for a month -long trip in a single
carry -on suitcase. A nightmare scenario. Right.
Absolute nightmare. You are shoving things in,
trying to force it. At a certain point, sitting
on the suitcase to force the zipper shut just
leaves you with wrinkled, unusable clothes. Because
they're simply too much. Yeah. And the worst
part of the analogy is imagine the suitcase is
magically shrinking while the clothes keep multiplying.
You have a massive volume of material crammed
in there, but you can't actually wear any of
it well. What's fascinating here is the underlying
assumption that makes that suitcase packing method
seem logical to the teacher in the first place.
That method relies entirely on a paradigm where
information is static. Static meaning it doesn't
change. Precisely. It assumes that there is a
finite, unchanging block of knowledge that simply
needs to be transferred, perfectly intact, from
the expert's brain into the novice's brain. But
as the text points out, that static reality is
simply no longer the reality we live in. That
shrinking suitcase problem is exactly why Ackerman
argues our core definition of a content -rich
field is totally outdated. It's not just rich.
It's volatile. Highly volatile. He notes that
content -rich fields are dynamic. and they are
rapidly changing. Information is being generated
at blinding speeds. This creates what we can
think of as the ultimate educator's dilemma.
Because information is moving so incredibly fast,
faculty members and instructors find themselves
in a really painful bind. They have to choose
what stays and what goes. They do. They have
to constantly look out at their field and identify
what new content is actually relevant and necessary
for their students to learn. And if you are adding
new things to a syllabus that is already packed
to the absolute brim... Well, something else
has to go. The suitcase cannot physically hold
anymore. Identifying new content inevitably requires
removing older content that is currently being
taught. And the text makes a very astute psychological
observation here. The faculty member is probably
deeply invested in maintaining that old content.
Let's talk about that friction. because that
is where the human element really clashes with
the theory. It really does. If an educator has
spent 20 years mastering a foundational theory,
building their lessons, their exams, their entire
professional identity around it, Telling them
to cut it isn't just a simple administrative
update. It feels like erasing their expertise.
It is a profound professional challenge. To tell
someone that the material they have dedicated
their life to transferring is now secondary to
a new paradigm is remarkably difficult. But Dr.
Ackerman introduces a crucial pivot here to resolve
this. A way out of the trap. Exactly. He argues
that in these rapid growth, information -rich
fields, an educator's job description has fundamentally
changed. They no longer just have a responsibility
to teach the content itself. They have an equal
responsibility, an equal responsibility, to ensure
that students can do three specific things when
the class ends. And those three things are access,
evaluate, and integrate new information. Access,
evaluate, and integrate, yeah. Those are highly
active verbs, and they demand a lot more than
just sitting quiet. in taking notes. They demand
a completely different cognitive posture. To
access means knowing the architecture of your
field well enough to find reliable new data when
it emerges. Knowing where to look. Right. To
evaluate means possessing the critical faculties
to determine if that new information is valid,
accurate, and relevant to the problem at hand.
And the third one, integrate. To integrate means
understanding how to weave that new information
into your existing framework of knowledge. Modifying
your worldview or your professional practice
accordingly without breaking down. Okay, I have
to challenge this setup though because it feels
like a chicken and egg problem to me. How so?
If an instructor doesn't spend the time filling
their students' brains with the foundational
rote facts of the field first, how do those students
possibly have the baseline knowledge required
to evaluate anything new? Are we just asking
novices to judge complex data without giving
them the tools to do so? That is the exact friction
Ackerman is addressing. The traditional assumption
is precisely what you just described. We assume
that memorizing a massive catalog of facts is
the mandatory prerequisite to evaluation. Right,
that you have to do step one before step two.
But Ackerman's framework suggests that evaluation
is not a sequential step that comes after memorization.
It is a simultaneous muscle built by doing. You
cannot develop these critical information management
skills in a classroom where you are just sitting
there being told what information to learn. So
the argument is that the act of passively absorbing
facts actually prevents the development of the
evaluative muscle. Yes. You can't learn how to
evaluate and integrate new information by listening
to a two -hour lecture, no matter how brilliant
the lecturer is. You just end up with a hand
cramp from taking notes. Exactly. You have to
be given a messy pile of conflicting information
and be told to sort it out. You have to practice
identifying what matters. Which brings us to
the second major observation of the text. And
this is where the listener really needs to reflect
on their own habits. A vital self -reflection.
When you are trying to master a new topic for
your job, or even just a complex hobby? Are you
passively waiting for a tutorial to feed you
the right answers? Or are you stepping into the
role of the active learner? Dr. Ackerman defines
active learners strictly based on their cognitive
engagement. They are individuals actively engaged
with thinking about the content. Thinking, not
just receiving. Correct. They are not just receiving
it, not just memorizing it, but turning it over
in their minds, questioning its premises, and
wrestling with its applications. The source provides
some pretty compelling evidence for why this
active approach is vastly superior to the fill
their brains method. There are three massive
benefits outlined for active learners. The first
one is straightforward. They simply achieve a
deeper understanding of the content. They understand
the underlying architecture of the idea, not
just the surface -level trivia. That makes sense.
But the second benefit is where a delightful
paradox presents itself. According to the text,
active learners actually perform better on traditional
assessments. Wait, we need to pause on that because
that feels entirely counterintuitive. I know,
right. If traditional tests like standardized
exams or multiple choice certifications are specifically
designed to reward the rote memorization of facts,
how on earth is the active learner, who is spending
their time wrestling with concepts instead of
memorizing flashcards, outperforming the krammer
on that specific type of test? reveals the hidden
weakness of the fill their brains approach. The
Crammer memorizes the exact shape of an answer.
The shape of the answer. That is a good way to
put it. If a question on the test is phrased
identically to how they memorized it, they succeed.
But if the test designer alters the context slightly,
or asks the student to combine two concepts,
the Crammer's fragile memorization shatters.
The active learner, however, understands the
mechanics of the system. Exactly. They don't
need to have memorized the exact phrasing because
they can logically deduce the answer from their
deeper understanding of the framework. The teacher's
frantic method of cramming to prepare students
for next year actually sabotages their resilience
on the very tests the teacher is worried about.
That makes perfect sense when you consider the
third massive benefit for active learners outlined
in the text. These students show a greater ability
to apply what they have learned to new and unfamiliar
problems. Here's where it gets really interesting
because applying knowledge to unfamiliar problems
is exactly how you achieve those satisfying aha
moments in life and in your career. When the
real world throws you a curveball a problem that
was not on the syllabus, a variable that didn't
exist when you were in school. The person who
just memorized the textbook freezes. Their static
knowledge cannot process the dynamic reality.
But the active learner, the one who knows how
to evaluate and integrate, looks at the unfamiliar
problem and realizes they can figure it out.
They haven't seen this exact thing before, but
they understand how to source the missing pieces
and connect them. This brings up a concept from
the author's broader work that is absolutely
vital to deconstruct if we want to understand
the full weight of this argument. Oh, definitely.
If we look at the archives and the related materials
from hack science education, there is a distinct
focus on the difference between active knowledge
and what we might call inert knowledge. In fact,
one of his podcast episodes is titled Exactly
That When Learning is Inert. specific, loaded
word to use in the context of education. Think
about the word inert in its strict scientific
context. Like an inert gas. Precisely. An inert
gas is one that does not react. It sits there,
stable, unmoving, entirely isolated from its
environment. It possesses no chemical kinetic
energy. When learning is inert, it means the
facts you have painstakingly memorized are just
sitting lifelessly in the storage center of your
brain. They aren't reacting with energy. They're
not reacting. They aren't moving. They aren't
combining with other ideas to form new insights.
They are isolated data points. They are essentially
dead weight. It goes right back to the wrinkled
clothes in that overstuffed suitcase. A perfect
parallel. You technically possess the items,
but they're completely useless to you. you actually
step out into a dynamic environment. You need
your knowledge to be kinetic. You need it to
be able to react to the shifting landscape of
your profession. If we connect this to the bigger
picture, it helps to look at the entire ecosystem
of Dr. Ackerman's website to truly grasp the
broader context of his philosophy. This isn't
just an isolated complaint about bad syllabus
design. No, it is a holistic view of modern information
ecosystems. When you look at the categories on
hackscience .education, you see a deliberate
intersection of very modern topics. He isn't
writing about traditional classroom management.
What are the categories? They include teaching,
learning, technology, ed tech, data analytics,
generative AI, STEM. It is a concentrated focus
on how education must evolve in a highly technological,
rapidly shifting landscape. It is an ecosystem
built on the premise that technology and massive
data generation have permanently altered the
terrain of human knowledge. The sheer volume
of data analytics and generative information
means our pedagogical frameworks must adapt or
perish. We can no longer act as gatekeepers of
static information. We have to become guides
for navigating dynamic systems. Nothing demonstrates
that philosophy in action quite like the author's
own podcast, which is featured on the site. The
Croutrol Plus Classroom podcast. Yes, Cool Plus
Classroom. Now, when you look at the details
of this podcast, something immediately jumps
out at you. Something that almost sounds absurd
in today's landscape of three -hour deep -dive
interview shows. The duration of the episodes
is radically brief. We are talking one to two
minutes long. That's short. Yes. For example,
there is an episode called How Computers Started
School that clocks in at one minute and 46 seconds.
Wow. On multiple hypotheses is one minute and
38 seconds. And the one you mentioned, When Learning
is Inert, is just one minute and tell me four
seconds. It sounds absurd until you view it through
Ackerman's pedagogical lens. Oh. It is a brilliant
synthesis - of form and function. Consider his
core argument. He is writing articles criticizing
the fill their brains with information approach.
He is arguing against long passive environments
where a teacher talks at a student for an hour
demanding they absorb everything. So when he
turns around and creates his own audio content,
he actively refuses to do a long form lecture.
He is practicing exactly what he preaches. The
medium itself is the message. Even his podcast
format reflects his core philosophy. He drops
a highly concentrated idea, a one minute conceptual
spark, and then he stops talking. He trusts the
listener to take that spark. Step into the role
of the active learner and spend their own time
evaluating and integrating that idea into their
own professional practice. He is deliberately
creating a space where the listener has to do
the work. If he spoke for two hours, he would
be filling your brain. By speaking for one minute,
he is just handing you a tool and demanding that
you figure out how to use it. It forces kinetic
learning. It prevents the podcast itself from
becoming inert knowledge. Absolutely. As we bring
this deep dive toward a close, let's synthesize
the core thesis we've been unpacking from Dr.
Ackerman's work. It all comes down to a fundamental
reassessment of what it means to be educated
today. It really does. If we want to be competent
and confident in the information we are trying
to master in these fast -paced content -rich
fields, we have to recognize that the old method
of telling and testing is a dead end. It is,
as the text explicitly states, one sure way that
a student will leave a classroom with very little
capacity to actually use the information they
have been given. The illusion of static knowledge
is a trap that leaves highly intelligent people
entirely unequipped for dynamic reality. We can
no longer measure our success by how much static
content we can cram into our heads. We have to
measure our success by our agility. Agility is
the perfect word. By our ability to seek out
new data, judge its worth objectively, and weave
it into what we already know without losing our
foundational footing. This raises an important
question and it is one I want to direct specifically
to you, the listener. Let's hear it. As you navigate
your own career, your own reading habits, your
own desire to be a well -informed professional,
how are you approaching your education? A tough
question to answer, honestly. Very tough. Are
you exhausting yourself trying to memorize an
ever -expanding ocean of facts just to feel competent?
Or are you actively practicing the specific skills
required to access, evaluate, and integrate them?
Are you frantically filling a suitcase, or are
you learning how to tailor a garment to fit the
actual climate you are walking into? So what
does this all mean? Ultimately, it means that
the future belongs to those who curate and connect,
not just those who consume. It belongs to the
active thinkers, the ones who aren't afraid to
discard old content when it is no longer relevant,
and who possess the resilient skills to navigate
the new. And as we conclude today, I want to
leave you with one final lingering thought to
mull over, building directly on the principles
we've discussed. Go for it. If traditional telling
and testing leaves us unable to practically use
information in dynamic fields, and if we must
shift to a model of constant evaluation and integration,
what is the ultimate fate of our massive static
archives of human knowledge? Oh, that is interesting.
Think of the millions of printed textbooks, the
rigidly standardized state curricula, the locked
in certification exams that dictate our professional
standards. Once the educational systems that
rely on these static artifacts become entirely
obsolete, as Dr. Ackerman suggests they must
to survive, how will we preserve the foundational
achievements of human knowledge without accidentally
turning them back into inert weights that drag
down the active learner? That is a heavy and
fascinating question to walk away with. What
happens to the old books when the world demands
dynamic action? That is all the time we have
for today's exploration. Thank you so much for
joining us on this deep dive, for being an active
learner alongside us, and for wrestling with
these ideas. Keep evaluating, keep integrating,
and we will catch you next time.