Making Minds Less Well Educated Than Our Own

Roger C. Schank

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135615109
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In the author's words: "This book is an honest attempt to understand what it means to be educated in today's world." His argument is this: No matter how important science and technology seem to industry or government or indeed to the daily life of people, as a society we believe that those educated in literature, history, and other humanities are in some way better informed, more knowing, and somehow more worthy of the descriptor "well educated." This 19th-century conception of the educated mind weighs heavily on our notions on how we educate our young. When we focus on intellectual and scholarly issues in high school as opposed to issues, such as communications, basic psychology, or child raising, we are continuing to rely on outdated notions of the educated mind that come from elitist notions of who is to be educated and what that means. To accommodate the realities of today's world it is necessary to change these elitist notions. We need to rethink what it means to be educated and begin to focus on a new conception of the very idea of education. Students need to learn how to think, not how to accomplish tasks, such as passing standardized tests and reciting rote facts.

In this engaging book, Roger C. Schank sets forth the premises of his argument, cites its foundations in the Great Books themselves, and illustrates it with examples from an experimental curriculum that has been used in graduate schools and with K-12 students.

Making Minds Less Well Educated Than Our Own is essential reading for scholars and students in the learning sciences, instructional design, curriculum theory and planning, educational policy, school reform, philosophy of education, higher education, and anyone interested in what it means to be educated in today's world.

1

The Great Minds on Education: Plato Meets Grandview Prep

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of facts.

Henry Adams

It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.

Alec Bourne

Factual knowledge is at the center of modern-day education. In fact, in an increasingly test-oriented school system, it is not only the center of the day, it is the basis on which everything else rests. One need not venture very far into the school system to see why this is so. It takes a little work, however, to see why this is a problem. It seems, at first glance, that an educated person is someone who has a great deal of information at his fingertips and that a large part of the role of a teacher would be to impart that information to the student. One problem with this idea was stated by Plato (The Republic, Book X):

And whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man—whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

Knowing only creates more understanding of what one doesn’t know, after all. It is odd that an educational system that depends so much on understanding the works of the great thinkers of history managed to miss this idea. Plato seems somewhat skeptical of the idea that there is some finite amount of knowledge. If that were the case there might be some possibility of knowing everything. But knowledge doesn’t work like that. Of course, there is value in knowing a great many things. However, consider the following from the Phaedrus Dialogue, also written by Plato:

SOCRATES: But he who thinks that in the written word there is necessarily much which is not serious, and that neither poetry nor prose, spoken or written, is of any great value, if, like the compositions of the rhapsodies, they are only recited in order to be believed, and not with any view to criticism or instruction; and who thinks that even the best of writings are but a reminiscence of what we know, and that only in principles of justice and goodness and nobility taught and communicated orally for the sake of instruction and graven in the soul, which is the true way of writing, is there clearness and perfection and seriousness, and that such principles are a man’s own and his legitimate off-spring;—being, in the first place, the word which he finds in his own bosom; secondly, the brethren and descendants and relations of his idea which have been duly implanted by him in the souls of others;—and who cares for them and no others—this is the right sort of man; and you and I, Phaedrus, would pray that we may become like him.

Socrates doesn’t seem to be that big a fan of explicit knowledge either. It isn’t knowledge that is basis of the educated mind, but the ability to deal with ideas based on knowledge. Socrates is making a key point about education, namely that simply knowing something isn’t of much value. You have to make it your own and that doesn’t happen simply by being able to reiterate what a teacher has told you. But surely that isn’t what modern education is about. Surely, we do let students come to grasp ideas and make them their own. Don’t we?

To answer this question more clearly I present next the 2nd-grade social studies curriculum from a school I have been working with in Florida. Following is the curriculum that I found there when they asked for my help:

Department of History

Second Grade Social Studies Curriculum

TIME REQUIREMENTS: 43 minutes

TEXT: Living in Communities: Silver, Burdett and Ginn (with corresponding workbook). (Note: Texts listed in section III are supplemental and can be used at the teacher’s discretion)

OTHER MATERIALS: Maps, globe, audio-visual materials, multi-media sources

COURSE EMPHASIS: The purpose of a second grade social studies curriculum is to reinforce the study of family, to study about neighborhoods and communities and the country as a whole, to learn about living in groups and working in communities. The students will also learn about communities from the past and communities around the world. The students will also reinforce their understanding of our country today and to reinforce the study of our country’s holidays. The Internet will be used extensively as a resource for students to enhance their studies.

• OBJECTIVES
  • Social Studies Skills
    1. Nature and Character of the Community
       • how the individual plays a role in the family unit—reinforce
       • how the student’s family compares with that of different cultures—new
    2. Nature and Process of Change
       • how the study of early man helps to develop a sense of time
       • how early man’s life compares with our own lives today
    3. Nature and Character of Peoples, Civilizations, and Cultures
       • how to compare different cultures and identify different reasons for similarities—reinforce, develop
       • how to contrast different cultures and identify reasons for differences—reinforce, develop
    4. Nature and Character of Heritage
       • how famous individuals have a significant impact on a country’s heritage—reinforce, develop
       • how individual ethnic groups have a significant impact on a country’s heritage—reinforce, develop
    5. Content and Methods of Various Social Studies Disciplines—Geography
       • how natural features that appear on the surface of the earth can be represented on maps using lines, shapes, colors, simple drawings, and symbols—reinforce, develop
       • how man-made features that appear on the surface of the earth can be represented on maps using lines, shapes, colors, simple drawings, and symbols—reinforce, develop
  • Learning, Studying, and Growing skills
    1. Map Study skills
       • How to interpret different kinds of maps—reinforce, develop, prepare.
       • How to identify and use map symbols—reinforce, develop, prepare.
       • How to distinguish a map from a picture—reinforce, develop, prepare.
       • How to use a map legend (key)—reinforce, develop, prepare.
       • How to use cardinal and ordinal directions on a map and globe—new, prepare.
       • How to use map coordinates—new, prepare.
       • How to use map colored pencils and crayons to color maps—reinforce, develop, prepare.
       • Identify major cities, rivers, lakes, and boundaries in Florida—new, prepare.
    2. Examination Skills
       • How to review class information as a review for a test—new, prepare.
       • How to read over all questions while taking a test—new, prepare.
    3. Classroom Study Skills
       • How to listen, follow instructions, etc.—reinforce, develop, prepare.
       • How to participate in discussion—reinforce, develop, prepare.
    4. Information Gathering, Recording, Organizing, and Communication Skills
       • How to gather materials—reinforce, develop, prepare.
       • How to organize materials—reinforce, develop, prepare.
    5. General Maturity Skills
       • How to assume responsibilities—reinforce, develop, prepare.
       • How to cooperate with others in group activities—new.
    6. How Geographic Setting and Important Historical Events Influence the Daily Life and the Current Situation of a single State—reinforce, develop.
• IMPLEMENTATION
  • Design and Sequence
    1. Community
       • Own Family
       • Style of Families—Cultures
    2. Change
       • Early Man
       • Men of the Middle Ages
       • Modern Man
    3. People, Civilizations, and Cultures
       • American Indians
       • Indians native to Florida
    4. Heritage
       • Famous Americans
       • Famous Floridians
       • Famous Natives
  • Methods
    1. Community
       • Own Family
         1. Interaction with Family Members
         2. Location of families on maps—city, state, world
       • Style of Families—Cultures
         1. Selected Literature
         2. Discussions
         3. Locations of Cultures
    2. Change
       • Early Man
         1. Selected Literature
         2. Discussion
         3. Timeline
         4. Booklet
       • Medieval Man
         1. Selected Literature
         2. Discussion
         3. Timeline
         4. Booklet
       • Modern Man
         1. Selected Literature
         2. Discussion
         3. Timeline
         4. Booklet
    3. People, Civilizations, and Culture
       • American Indians
         1. Discussions
         2. Migration from Asia Map and Worksheet
         3. Major groups of Indians—migration and settlement patterns
         4. Charts and maps
       • Five major groups—Eastern Woodland, Southeast, Plains, Desert, and Western Coast
         1. Selected Literature
         2. Charts
         3. Maps
         4. Pictures
       • Indian Sign Language
         1. Charts
         2. Alphabets
         3. World Lists
         4. Original Stories
       • Word Searches and Crossword Puzzles
       • Homes of Various Tribes
       • Clothes of Various Tribes
       • Clothes of Various Tribes
       • Indian Crafts in Art
  • Heritage
    1. Famous Americans
       • Christopher Columbus
         1. Selected Books
         2. Worksheets
         3. Illustrations
         4. Film
       • Pilgrims
         1. Selected Books
         2. Worksheets
         3. Illustration
       • Daniel Boone
         1. Selected Books
         2. Worksheets
         3. Illustration
       • George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Benjamin Franklin
         1. Selected Books
         2. Reports
         3. Worksheets
         4. Illustrations
         5. Word Searches and Crossword Puzzles
    2. Florida
       • Major Units
         1. Florida as an Indian Land
         2. Florida Under Spain
         3. Florida as a State
         4. Florida Sites and Symbols
       • Activities
         1. Vocabulary
         2. Lifestyle—charts and illustrations
         3. Worksheets
         4. Time Line
         5. Discussion of Major Events
    3. Geography
       • Land Areas
       • Indian Adaptation
       • Exploration
       • Agriculture
       • Resources
    4. People—Discussed with Florida Vocabulary
       • Ponce de Leon
       • Vasco da Gama
       • Black Caesar
       • Thomas Edison
       • Other noted Floridians
    5. Field Trips
       • Graves Archaeological Museum
       • Miami Museum of Science
       • Fort Lauderdale IMAX
    6. Florida Play
    7. Florida Wildflower Study
    8. Florida Map Test
    9. Florida Test
    10. Boca Raton
        • Boca Facts
        • Use of Local Phone Director
        • Interviews
        • Charts
        • Graphs
        • Grids
        • Maps
        • Word Searches and Crossword Puzzles
        • Illustrations
        • Field Trips
          1. Industrial
          2. Downtown
  • Social Studies Disciplines—Geography
    1. Map Skills Unit
       • Map Show the Earth Kit
       • Success with Maps Workbooks
       • Multi-Media Sources
       • Worksheets
       • Original Maps
• TEXTS AND MATERIALS
  • Texts
    1. Down Bright Roads—Economy
    2. Tales to Enjoy—Economy
    3. Lincoln and Washington—Highlights
  • Additional Books
    1. Early Man by F. Clark Howell
    2. The How and Why Book of Primitive Man by Donald Barr
    3. People of the Ice Age by Goode
    4. The Story of Christopher Columbus by Ann McGovern
    5. A Man Named Columbus by Gertrude Norman
    6. Columbus by Ingri and Edgar Parin
    7. Daniel Boone by Katherine E. Wilke
    8. George Washington by Stewart Graff
    9. Abraham Lincoln by Ann Colve
    10. The Pilgrims’ Party by Sadybeth Lowitz
    11. The American History Scene—Creative Teaching Press
    12. All Junior Biographies
    13. World of the American Indian—National Geographic
    14. The Rain Dance People by Richard Erdoes
    15. Indian Crafts and Lore by W. Ben Hunt
    16. Highlights Book About the American Indian
    17. The Coloring Book of the American Indians by Cathy Bodmer
    18. American Indian by Bruce Grant
    19. Indians by Edwin Tunis
    20. The American Indian by Sydney Fletcher
    21. Western Indians by Ralph Andrews
    22. Indians of the Plains by Eugene Rachles
    23. America and Its Indians by Jerome Leavitt
    24. Indian Music Makers by Robert Hofsinde
    25. The Cherokee by Sonia Bleeker
    26. Indian Festivals by Paul Showers
    27. Kachina Dolls by Julie Staheli
    28. Indian Myths by Berstein and Kabrin
    29. Facts About Our Fifty States by Sue Brandt
  • Labs
    1. Maps Show the Earth
    2. Map Skills for Beginners
  • Multi-Media
  • Maps
    1. Nystrom Readiness U.S. and World Map
    2. American Geographics Map of Florida
  • Globes
  • Second Grade Curriculum Binder
  • Teacher made Materials
• EVALUATION
  • Observation to Determine:
    1. Degree of Interest and Enthusiasm
    2. Skill ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface What Is an Educated Mind?
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue: 1892
• 1: The Great Minds on Education: Plato Meets Grandview Prep
• 2: Thinking and Experience in School
• 3: What Uneducated Minds Need
• 4: The Formally Educated Mind
• 5: What Is Required for a Good Education?
• 6: How High School Got That Way (the Search for the Smoking Gun)
• 7: Producing Educated Minds Is Not the University’s Problem
• 8: Structuring the Learning Experience
• 9: Teaching and Testing in the Modern World
• 10: Horses for Courses: The Story Centered Curriculum
• 11: Rethinking College
• 12: The SCC at Grandview (2002–2003)
• 13: Teaching Realities
• 14: Fifth Grade Follies
• 15: The Eighth and Twelfth Grade Writing Curricula: A Study in Contrasts
• 16: Redesigning the Curriculum
• 17: K–12 Stories
• 18: CMU West
• 19: The Eleventh Grade Hospital Curriculum
• 20: Toward a New Conception of Education
• Epilogue: What’s a Mother to Do?