Letter to the Editor
Published in the Orlando Sentinel
January 12, 2004
Mind Training
As a teacher who came from the business world, I found much I agreed with in Marion Brady's commentary "Boxed in: Education should be about more than storing facts." Both parents and teachers have the responsibility of preparing our children. What we are preparing them for is their marketability after graduation.
Our students will not be handed a book detailing all the problems of their chosen field and the solutions to overcome them. They will be handed the problems, told there are no current solutions, and that if they want to keep their jobs they need to solve them.
This cannot be done if a person is only taught the "facts". Therefore, the classroom is very much like a weight room, and we are the strength-training coaches. Intelligence grows much like a muscle, from being pushed to lift "heavy" intellectual weight. Real strength is the students" knowledge and comprehension of information, the application and analysis of this information, synthesizing this information into new ideas, and the evaluation of the new ideas based on their merit.
Adam Stuart
2 comments:
The application of knowledge is made even more important in the information age. Our students no longer have to memorize the facts but rather just have to know how to find it when needed.
The application of knowledge is more important than ever. Our children do not need to memorize as many facts. Rather they just need to know how to get it when needed.
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