So far my blog has focused on my travels because, frankly, that’s what most people are interested in. However, being a teacher, I often contemplate institutions of learning and methods. Some of you may know that Albert Einstein is one of my favorite people. Part of this is probably a relic from my years as a physics teacher. After all, he was THE physicist. Relativity? Brilliant. Plus, he never did a single experiment outside of his head, yet experiments done by other scientists confirmed his theories. Very cool and imaginative. Not necessarily words most people associate with theoretical physics, but they are extremely accurate adjectives. The other reason I like Einstein so much is for his philosophical quotes. They range from the funny (“I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.”) to the profound (“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”)
Einstein was extremely critical of formal learning. Contrary to popular belief, Einstein was not a poor student; however, he was not impressed with the methods used for educating people at the time. Although he has many good quotes on education, I am going to focus on the following, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”
To satisfy our curiosity is the very reason education was invented. Are we now killing curiosity with its supposed remedy? These days it seems that the best schools have the “hardest” classes. Newsweek’s “America’s Best High Schools” (I used to teach at a school on this list on that list, by the way) are chosen in large part based on how many students take AP tests, the scores on those tests, and how many AP courses are offered by the school (these 3 make up 40% of the criteria when schools are being ranked). Are AP and similar “hard” classes really the be all end all of a good education? Does it foster curiosity or a desire to memorize the answer? Based on my experience, it is definitely the latter. Kids want to do well and they take the challenge head on, but many are not in these classes to satisfy their curiosity, but so they can have “better opportunities” and a “good education” as defined above. Or, they just want college credit.
“The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.” Oh, Al, how right you are. I know the wonder of science. But, I’m one of those super nerds that reads National Geographic and Einstein quotes in my free time. I have to stop and wonder sometimes, am I taking my students on a “continual flight from wonder,” or am I making them memorize DNA base-pairing? Granted, in science, there has to be some memorization of information in order to comprehend processes, but sometimes we become too focused on it. Time is short. Labs are messy. Time is short. I don’t have the materials. Time is short. I have to cover every single thing in the curriculum and….. Time is short.
Time is short in every school, but the schedule I’ve been presented with in Bulgaria is so different! I see my students once a week for a block. That’s it. Granted, they take biology for three years in this fashion, but still, one class a week? I’m already feeling the time crunch. And labs? That could take up almost an entire block, which might put me behind on my syllabus. I can feel myself strangling the curiosity already (or what’s left of a typical 11th grader’s curiosity after 11 years of schooling).
The classes these kids take are hard, and they take a lot of them. But, are we really serving them as well as we could be? What about creative thinking and lab design? The freedom to explore a topic that interests you a little more without the fear of not making it through every single item on the syllabus?
Steve Keil gave a lecture called A manifesto for play, for Bulgaria and beyond. He talks about Bulgaria’s last place finishes in education, entrepreneurship, and healthcare and his hypothesis that the country devalues “play.” More specifically, an education system that values “rote learning, memorization, and standardization” and devalues “self expression, self exploration, questioning creativity, and play.” He blames it on a virus left by 45 years of communism. However, is it really that different in the US? Granted, in the US I never had to fill out what I teach each and every day in a huge ledger for the government, but standardization? Memorization? Hmm, I seem to remember taking some time each year to make sure my kids knew (i.e. memorized) what was on the state assessment for No Child Left Behind. Granted, that was only a few hours out of the year. The rest of the time I was free to teach as I pleased, but in some schools, especially lower performing schools, the tests can rule the curriculum.
In the end, wouldn’t it be better to cover fewer topics in more detail, giving teachers and students alike more time to explore and satisfy curiosity? Classes should certainly still be challenging and demanding, but according to WH Schmidt, “curriculum in America is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” So we learn a little about a lot. It would be better to learn a lot about a little (or, you know, less). Maybe then, kids would get a chance to think and imagine. Maybe then, Einstein wouldn’t be such a singularity.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” –Albert Einstein
