Have you noticed how everyone is now an expert in everything?
When a whale calf got lost in Sydney, everyone was suddenly a whale expert. Everyone had an opinion, a solution, a contraption.
Whilst talk-back radio was once the domain of the 2 minute expert, we’re all increasingly becoming “experts” through the accessibility of information. This isn’t a bad thing, the free and easy access of information, but my concern is that we haven’t learnt to temper our new found knowledge obtained from Wikipedia and rather than just questioning the real experts in a particular field, we flat out dismiss them. We’re increasingly devaluing the idea of expertise in our society.
Another example recently in the news, the school that is giving students the ability to call a friend during an exam. Access to information does not make one an expert. Ask me to write an essay about Shakespeare, I’ve got nothing – let me call my English Teacher friend, I’m sure I could then jot out an adequate essay – but what’s the point? I do agree that assessment tasks shouldn’t be about memory, there should be greater access to information and resources, but again it needs to be balanced. Assessment tasks shouldn’t be about who has the broadest social network.
We seem to be trying to bring the highest levels of knowledge closer to more of us by devaluing the idea of an expert. Regurgitating information is not the same as developing and transforming information into knowledge.