Chapter 1 blog a

What struck me most about Chapter One was a quote by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon (see pic) when he said that the meaning of "knowing" has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it (1996). And then I racked my brains trying to remember a teacher of mine saying the same thing to me in 1994. It was Dr. Kallingal in one of his psychology classes! Do you know what that means? Dr. Kallingal could have won the Nobel prize instead!

All kidding aside, I was curious about this who this Herbert Simon person was so I googled his name and found this link about who he was. It turns out that he is a computer expert and the father of artificial intelligence. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978 and seemed to be an expert on anything and everything: computers, physics, cognitive psychology to name a few. How did such a person "learn"?

His childhood was immersed in education; he surrounded himself with books, played music, and loved the outdoors. He loved discussion and debate over dinner with his family. So how was he so academically successful when others have failed?

The chapter says that academically gifted students like Dr. Simon may have had an advantage over the run-of-the-mill students because "formal educational environments have been better at selecting talent than developing it". If only ordinary students could have been given better opportunities to bloom we would have more Nobel laureates in the world. Sadly, this is not the case. Therefore we as teachers should design our classroom environment so that it embraces even the unembraceable child.

I guess this is what we will learn to do in the next few weeks...