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Thoughts Thus Far on 50 Modern Thinkers
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August 5th, 2009UncategorizedJust thought I’d record some of my initial thoughts now that I’m getting into this 50 Modern Thinkers book…
1. I find myself wondering where sciences/math come into the picture fora lot of these people. You can’t learn your multiplication tables by playing, and you can’t learn biology through immersing yourself in society. I can almost make the leap to learning some of the humanities like this (sociology? psychology?), and certainly there will be some students that enjoy reading of their own accord, but I’m a scientist and I love science and even I don’t like having to straight memorize things. But I have to, and I’m a better scientist for it. I know the phylogenetic classification system, the amino acids, the enzymes used in DNA transcription, and a whole lot of other things that I learned via my favorite memorization method – flashcards! And yes, they are tedious and pretty boring, but you can’t memorize those kinds of facts , at least not for the long-term, without repetition (ask Ebbinghaus if you don’t believe me).
So is this a lesser form of knowledge? Yes… if it just remains a list of unrelated things, but once you know them you can start to synthesize things in ways that you simply can’t if you don’t understand the details. Certainly there needs to be room for creativity (and there are some very creative scientists out there – see my post on the brainbow technique if you need proof), but you can’t get to that level without the groundwork. I would argue that the same could be true for more “creative” things like writing. I mean, as long as you’re literate you can write, right? Okay, but what if you don’t understand rules of grammar? And what if your vocabulary is tiny? These aren’t things that just occur to people (especially not
young kids), so the real question seems to be how we can teach these things – because I do think they need to be taught in some kind of structured way – and get them to stick without boring the students to death? Thoughts? Anyone?
2. There seem to be a lot of people in this book that are something-else-turned-educators. Interesting. Lots of them seem to get interested in education when they start teaching. Funny that we generally don’t think about it when we’re being educated.
“Teaching is more difficult than learning because what teaching calls for is this: to let learn.” – Martin Heidegger
2 Responses to “Thoughts Thus Far on 50 Modern Thinkers”
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Thanks for continuing the discussion of these important issues. As a scientist, you might find the following video interesting:
http://www.edutopia.org/node/2971
There were three messages I took away from this that I think are key to understanding progressive and humanistic learning. The first is that standardized test scores are rising, both relative to the previous history of the school. (And, I believe, in relation to other schools in the state.) Most of the research into progressive models–when practiced responsibly–shows that students don’t necessary learn less content. Even the Summerhill students scored about the same on national exams as other students.
Secondly, while objective scores increased, other measures improved as well. Better attendance, fewer behavior problems, stronger connection with the community. Those objectives are as important as educational outcomes as content mastery.
Thirdly, making this work requires a much different model for teachers–they need to define their goals differently, and they often have to work harder (and longer) than they did under more traditional models. Accomplishing that kind of perspective transformation happens best in a community with clearly defined shared values. The clips from the principle indicate how leadership can help support faculty in thinking about these new models.
Since you mention the multiplication tables, you might be interested in this video from 60 years ago.
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Hillary,
I’ve been following this blog since, I believe, your first post – noticed it via ATL-Hub and Gardner Writes; plus I’m a Baylor Alum (Sic’em Bears ‘94).
I disagree that it’s unavoidable to approach rote knowledge any other way. Repetition can occur while playing; it doesn’t have to be flashcards or other textual information. I’m working with my 8.5yo daughter on multiplication by playing Jacks – 2s’ies, 3s’ies, 4s’ies… And, she’s exploring biology by playing with a portable, toy-like microscope with 50x, 100x and 200x magnification (maybe 400x); she can take pictures of what she’s exploring with it. Of course, we often jump out to web based resources to bring in more content, but the core activity of the learning process is structured around play which is then supplemented by more traditional content (scaffolding).
The notion that you can’t acquire knowledge through creative or non-traditional efforts is a concern for me as well. There’s more than a few critiques of current educational systems worldwide that focus on the negative impact “schooling” has on creativity. Sir Ken Robinson’s presentation at TED a few years ago is worth watching (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html). We might be better served to start with creativity and learn through it rather than setting it aside to “learn the facts” before deciding to be creative again.
Connectivism might be an interesting approach to explore; the theoretical assumptions it makes are inconsistent with the basic epistemology you describe in your post. http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-connectivism-is.html
I’ve been reading Ivan Ilich’s “Deschooling Society” – or trying to between evenings spent working on my own dissertation
My last three blog posts have been about that book or some aspect thereof.Enjoying your blog. Appreciate your sharing your experience and thoughts!
-Chris
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