Category: Knowledge
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On the Purposes of the Internet
SISCTI 34 February 28, 2009 Monterrey, Mexico Introduction I am going to begin by asking a philosophical question about the Internet. But I can hear some of you saying, “Philosophy? What does that have to […]
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Why study higher mathematics and other stuff most people don’t use in everyday life?
This video was posted in a Facebook group of mine here: I find it ironic that some of the most listened-to speakers about education explain that the cure to our educational ills is to point […]
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Against language arts and social studies textbooks
Here’s a little argument against language arts and social studies (e.g., history and geography) textbooks. We need to get rid of them. Period. Prima facie, we don’t need textbooks to teach a subject. Other pedagogical methods include chapter […]
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Why is spaced repetition not better known?
Suppose a method let you remember things with a 95% success rate–in other words, whatever information you’ve put into a system, you’d have a 95% chance of recalling it–and this effect is permanent, […]
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What I dislike about experts: dogmatism
Since I started Citizendium, which invites experts to be “village elders wandering the bazaar” of an otherwise egalitarian wiki, and am well-known for criticizing Wikipedia’s often-hostile stance toward experts, I am sometimes held […]
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The future, according to Kathy Sierra
Kathy Sierra blogged earlier today six years ago (!) that “The future is not in learning“; the future lies, instead, in “unlearning.” This sounds awfully like another example of the geek anti-intellectualism that I […]
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On educational anti-intellectualism: a reply to Steve Wheeler
Suppose a student arrived at the age of 18 not knowing anything significant about World War II or almost any other war, barely able to do arithmetic, ignorant of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, and […]
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An example of educational anti-intellectualism
I’ve got to stop blogging quite so much, but I couldn’t let this pass without comment. One would expect Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor of learning technology at Plymouth University in England, to be […]
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A short manifesto for schools: time to focus on knowledge
Ever since I was an elementary school student myself, I have been chronically disappointed with the American education establishment. Don’t get me wrong–I get along fine with most of the educators I encounter, […]