Changes

Jump to navigation Jump to search
1,680 bytes added ,  04:02, 7 February 2009
→‎Stephen Jay Gould: Add Bruner, Feynman
Line 63: Line 63:     
* Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
 
* Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
 +
 +
==Jerome Bruner==
 +
 +
We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.
 +
 +
The Process of Education (1960)
 +
 +
==Richard Feynman==
 +
 +
I got a telephone call from a pretty famous lawyer here in Pasadena, Mr. Norris, who was at that time on the State Board of Education. He asked me if I would serve on the State Curriculum Commission, which had to choose the new schoolbooks for the state of California...
 +
 +
I had a special bookshelf put in my study downstairs (the books took up seventeen feet), and began reading all the books that were going to be discussed in the next meeting. We were going to start out with the elementary schoolbooks...
 +
 +
It was a pretty big job, and I worked all the time at it down in the basement. My wife says that during this period it was like living over a volcano. It would be quiet for a while, but then all of a sudden, "BLLLLLOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!" -- there would be a big explosion from the "volcano" below.
 +
 +
The reason was that the books were so lousy. They were false. They were hurried. They would try to be rigorous, but they would use examples (like automobiles in the street for "sets") which were almost OK, but in which there were always some subtleties. The definitions weren't accurate. Everything was a little bit ambiguous -- they weren't smart enough to understand what was meant by "rigor." They were faking it. They were teaching something they didn't understand, and which was, in fact, useless, at that time, for the child.
 +
 +
[http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm Judging Books by Their Covers], in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)
    
==Stephen Jay Gould==
 
==Stephen Jay Gould==
1,009

edits

Navigation menu