Finally, [Sergey Brin] leaned forward and fired his best shot, what he came to call “the hard question.”
“I’m going to give you five minutes,” he told me. “When I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don’t already know.” He then rolled out of the room toward the snack area. I looked at Cindy. “He’s very curious about everything,” she told me. “You can talk about a hobby, something technical, whatever you want. Just make sure it’s something you really understand well.”
According to a 2006 report by the Federation of American Scientists, students recall just 10% of what they read and 20% of what they hear. If visuals accompany an oral presentation, retention rises to 30%. But “if they do the job themselves, even if only as a simulation,” students can remember 90%.
Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don’t learn until you’re older – yet you could learn them when you’re younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?
God, how exciting that could be! But you can’t do it today. You’d be crazy to work in a school today. You don’t get to do what you want. You don’t get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?
A kind reader sent in the audio of Neil Postman’s lecture on “Technology and Education” that was given on April 8, 1994. A transcript is forthcoming. In the meantime, here’s the audio:
The polymath is a myth. It contradicts reason, the latest research on genetic inheritance, human nature, and even the Bible (which speaks of “diversities of gifts” among different people). Da Vinci was an incredible artist and thinker, but he often struggled to finish his work. For all his talents, Jefferson was horrible at handling money, dying deeply in debt. He seemed organically incapable of the kinds of constructive confrontations that were welcomed by his sometime collaborator John Adams. And fictional characters such as James Bond are just that — fiction.
—Rodd Wagner & Gale Muller, The Power of 2 (2009), p. 23
Experiment and the scientific method can be taught in many matters other than science…. Want the students to understand the Constitution of the United States? You could have them read it, Article by Article, and then discuss it in class—but, sadly, this will put most of them to sleep.
Or you could try the [Daniel] Kunitz method: You forbid the students to read the Constitution. Instead, you assign them, two for each state, to attend a Constitutional Convention. You brief each of the thirteen teams in detail on the particular interests of their state and region. The South Carolina delegation, say, would be told the primacy of cotton, the necessity and morality of the slave trade; the danger posed by the industrial North, and so on. The thirteen delegations assemble, and with a little faculty guidance, but mainly on their own, over some weeks write a constitution. Then they read the Constitution. The students have reserved war-making powers to the President. The delegates of 1787 assigned them to Congress. Why? The students have freed the slaves. The original Constitutional Convention did not. Why?
This takes more preparation by the teachers and more work by the students, but the experience is unforgettable. It’s hard not to think that the nations of the Earth would be in better shape if every citizen went through a comparable experience.
Fire and Knowledge aims to be thoughtful and challenging through quotes, links, commentary and essays.
Topics include science, religion, politics, literature, history and technology. As someone said, there are no uninteresting subjects, only uninterested people.