Mis-taught Learning

Mis-taught learning is the the worst of all.

I like knowledge - in fact, I may quality as a collector of knowledge.  I love knowledge - but I love to be able to apply the knowledge in ways that benefit myself and others.  And in this sort of world, the worst thing of all is knowledge which is presented as useful and productive but is presented in such a way that it is not applicable at all.

The knowledge may be wonderful.  The examples may be useful.  But they way the knowledge is presented is such that it is not at all relevant - or will be relevant - to the sorts of work one is doing.

It leaves a bad taste in one's mouth - not just for presentation of the material, but for the very material itself.  That leaves the sort of taste in one's mouth that one finds disappointing, especially if one had high hopes for the knowledge and the application of it. Given a long enough run, it creates issues for the very nature of the knowledge itself.

I wonder (on a higher level) if this is a problem with much of learning as well - not just that it is taught poorly but that it is taught in such a way that the relevance of the material is not presented as something which is valuable but rather something which must be suffered through.

Latin is useful.  Chemistry is useful.  But only if it is presented in such a way that individuals can make the connection of the value (and trust me, the value of knowledge goes far beyond coding and the ability to play games) with life as it actually is.