I had an epiphany this morning and quickly conveyed my vision to my youngest son. That's the best way for me to remember an idea, relaying it to another person.
I was listening to a podcast of the Tom Woods Show and he was talking about history, economics, and education. The usual topics. They were were lamenting the way schools teach history with just the memorization of dates, names, and places. That is the way you'd have to teach history if you are going to test and quantify it. But it isn't the best way to understand or use history in your life. In fact, learning it that way is so dull that no one enjoys it or believes it to be relevant to the present at the end of a course.
My vision was a box of puzzle pieces with a picture on it or not. You open the box and pull out a piece. It's green. You put it on your table and pull out another piece. This one is red, completely unrelated to the green one. The next piece is different. It has a straight edge and the next one is straight edged and green, like the first piece. Eventually some pieces look similar and you pile them together. Some pieces start to fit together and you can see part of the picture. And finally, after hours of work, you can see the whole thing and you stand back and admire it. Maybe you seal it up and hang it in a frame on your wall to beautify your office.
That's how learning works. You read one book, a website, an article, or a magazine. You watch a tv program, talk to a relative, see a movie, or listen to concert. You visit an amusement park, a museum, or a park. You play a game. All of these things seem completely unrelated but your brain sorts information like pieces of a puzzle. You start to see how parts of one thing can be related to another and you begin to put them together and see parts of the picture, the real story. And after years of experiences you begin to realize that more and more pieces connect in some way. They form bigger pictures that spread out and take shape. They transform into a body of knowledge and a world view that you can keep and beautify you life with.
Everyone does this, babies, children, teens, and adults, if you let them.
I was listening to a podcast of the Tom Woods Show and he was talking about history, economics, and education. The usual topics. They were were lamenting the way schools teach history with just the memorization of dates, names, and places. That is the way you'd have to teach history if you are going to test and quantify it. But it isn't the best way to understand or use history in your life. In fact, learning it that way is so dull that no one enjoys it or believes it to be relevant to the present at the end of a course.
My vision was a box of puzzle pieces with a picture on it or not. You open the box and pull out a piece. It's green. You put it on your table and pull out another piece. This one is red, completely unrelated to the green one. The next piece is different. It has a straight edge and the next one is straight edged and green, like the first piece. Eventually some pieces look similar and you pile them together. Some pieces start to fit together and you can see part of the picture. And finally, after hours of work, you can see the whole thing and you stand back and admire it. Maybe you seal it up and hang it in a frame on your wall to beautify your office.
That's how learning works. You read one book, a website, an article, or a magazine. You watch a tv program, talk to a relative, see a movie, or listen to concert. You visit an amusement park, a museum, or a park. You play a game. All of these things seem completely unrelated but your brain sorts information like pieces of a puzzle. You start to see how parts of one thing can be related to another and you begin to put them together and see parts of the picture, the real story. And after years of experiences you begin to realize that more and more pieces connect in some way. They form bigger pictures that spread out and take shape. They transform into a body of knowledge and a world view that you can keep and beautify you life with.
Everyone does this, babies, children, teens, and adults, if you let them.
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