Friday, March 15, 2013

CORRECT APPROACH TO EDUCATION

THE POST IS MY OUTLINE FROM THE SECTION ON MODERN EDUCATION(CHAPTER 7) IN "THE DIM HYPOTHESIS :WHY THE LIGHTS OF WEST ARE GOING OUT"[1] BY DR PEIKOFF

Its focus will be on developing conceptual faculty, because as Ayn Rand said – For animals survival is primarily physical, for man its epistemological(that is survival depends on his method of thinking). [“For The New Intellectual”].
 
1. Nature of conceptual faculty: Conceptual faculty [being volitional] can cover both valid and invalid operations. It does not operate automatically. It may be directed towards reality or directed away from it. And it may be based on observation, or may be independent of it.
Nature of rational education: Education can develop or derail child's mind. Purpose of the teacher across years is to teach the perceptual level toddler. Teaching him to become a rational, conceptual level thinker.

2. Content of rational education delimited to four subjects – science with emphasis on physics, mathematics, history, and literature: Physics teaching basic facts of nature and how to integrate them, giving student full grasp of connection between the percept and the concept.
Mathematics exhibiting method of thought separated from content[Like integration as addition, abstraction as numbers].
History being empirical workshop of human nature, and acting as foundation to college courses on Humanities.
Literature being art, presenting concretization of philosophic view of life. Thus acquainting child with highest level of abstractions.

3. What such curriculum excludes: A rational curriculum deliberately does not include time consuming subjects like music, foreign languages etc. These can undercut school's ability of achieving its primary objectives[elaborated in 1.].
It also excludes college level subjects like Politics, Economics, Psychology. Since student cannot excel in these without proper foundation in Humanities through History and Literature. And Philosophy is not presented directly but in the form of preliminary data[like Literature described before and methods we will see later].

4. Primary qualification of teacher: He should be an expert in particular subject matter and its presentation. So lecturing being his primary activity, where he carefully selects and structures the topics he covers.

5. Elaborating on the structure of subject matter presented: Logical structure in this context being hierarchical integration. Starting from percepts to lower level generalizations to more abstract and underlying principles. Level of highest abstractions being so far as the student at any given age can understand these.

6. Cross reference between subjects being other form of integration: That is relationships between points taught in one subject to those in other subjects. Dr. Peikoff regards this aspect of teaching as critical, especially when the points and subject areas first appear to be completely unrelated.
Not all issues are related, of course, but the conceptualizing student should learn to see (or at least seek) connections everywhere – for example, between King Tut and George III and Othello, between the inverse square law and Thomas Jefferson, and even between Mr Spock and geometry. Gradually, the child so taught comes to see the world not as a juxtaposition, but as a whole. Marva Collins is a champion teacher in this regard.[Elaborating the examples in the footnote].

7. Content and method of integrating content being the primary teaching material: However methods of thinking like induction and deduction are not directly presented, but applied in structuring the lecture topics. And thus communicated indirectly. The student can grasp these methods explicitly later, since explicit grasp requires sophistication[of adult] and intellectual independence.
The same approach can be used for teaching values.[Like methods of Thinking, Ethics also taught indirectly].

8. Concluding on the approach: Its specific goals, the subjects, the methods are integrated by a single ruling purpose. Purpose being to develop pre-conceptual child's conceptual faculty.

ELABORATING CROSS RELATIONSHIP EXAMPLES

The section elaborates the following portion of outline
6.Cross reference between subjects being other form of integration ….Not all issues are related, of course, but the conceptualizing student should learn to see (or at least seek) connections everywhere – for example, between King Tut and George III and Othello, between the inverse square law and Thomas Jefferson, and even between Mr Spock and geometry. ”

- King Tut was King in ancient Egypt[3], George III[4] was the king of England around 18th century end, and Othello[5] was the fictional General with lifestyle similar to kings. So co-relation can involve the facts like big responsibilities, lifestyle involving interacting with wide range of people, surrounded by conspirators like Iago etc.


- Inverse square law[6] is discussed for Gravitational field here. Newton started with observation of planets and his experimentally established laws of motion. Using geometry and differential calculus he deduced intermediate, relatively lower level concept, an equation for the law of circular motion. He then combined it with one of Kepler's empirical laws of planetary motions(his predecessor) to get the resultant equation using algebra.
And concept of Individual Rights in constitution written by Jefferson[7] also required looking into observable facts like man pursues values in different businesses, and criminals hindering that pursuit. Lower level concept derived from these like right to self defense, and co-relating it to general historical facts of government's role(similar to Kepler's laws for Newton). Where government has faltered and succeeded in history and why[Magna Carta, Roman laws, Greek system etc.], and finally arriving at the right to "Life, Liberty, and pursuit to happiness".

- Spock[8] the character in fictional "Star Trek" series. How his thought process might involve moving from abstract purpose(saving Romulans from rogue Supernova) to concrete actions. Similar to moving from abstract problem statement to specific proofs in geometry using geometric axioms.


[1]http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451234812
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori#Educational_philosophy_and_pedagogy
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_tut
[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_iii
[5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello
[6]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_square_law
[7]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_jefferson
[8]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock

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