Advice for Parents and Teachers about Teaching from a Berkeley PhD.
"a good scientist needs to cherish the feeling of 'not knowing' as long as possible"
"The root cause is that American students, in particular, find it difficult to cope with the state of ``not knowing''. They need to feel they know, even if they can't possibly given the evidence available to them. They are happier feeling they know, and later finding themselves wrong, than in feeling ignorant, and later being enlightened. It's an unfortunate tendency, which tends to hamper their scientific abilities, since a good scientist needs to cherish the feeling of ``not knowing'' as long as possible. It is only in this mental silence, free of unjustifiable hypothesizing, that the truth, which always starts out as a tiny voice indeed, can be heard."
Christopher Grayce, PhD, Argonne National Laboratory Office of Science.
The above quotes are from an answer to a teacher who was wondering about whether spin creates gravity, as many of her students seem to think. The full answer is well worth reading.
I am in full agreement with cultivating the feeling of "not knowing." The small child and the good scientist are always asking "why." The scientist continues to wonder and is not satisfied until he or she sees the why of something. Professor Einstein pondered the nature of light for 40 years and then said that he still did not know what light really is.
I myself have had a question that I have continued to investigate now for 20 years. I have made progress, but I still do not know the answer. Because I hold hasty conclusions in abeyance, avoid the rush to judgment; and because I am not satisfied with a dumbed down answer - I am like a true scientist.
It is for this reason that intuitive children, and those destined to become geniuses and giants of the age, are often slow to learn. They wonder, tinker, question, and they are dreamers (like Einstein was). But when they finally see for themselves, they learn at lightning speed way.
The great discoveries and inventions, such as those of Tesla, Maxwell, Faraday, Jobs, Wozniak, Hewlett and Packard, and Edison - giving us our computers and mobile devices, for example, were made by people who kept wondering why. They spent their time tinkering in the garage or lab, trying to find out the answer.
The lessons are clear:
Don't pander to your students.
Don't dumb things down so that everyone feels good but are really being degraded and given second rate knowledge.
If you have a question and don't know the answer, wonder about it, and one day you may discover the answer.
Pay attention to your hunches and intuition. Einstein did.
If you don't know the answer to a question when asked, freely admit that you do not know.
If you find that you were in error about something (wrong), admit it and then move forward.
True discovery and creativity takes lots of time, so don't fill up your kids time with too many activities. Give them time and space to daydream, doodle, explore, read and just be a kid.
Limit or just don't provide cell phones, mobile devices, facebook accounts, twitter, and video games.
I know one parent who gave his home schooled son a computer when he was 5. But no video games. The computer was not connected to the internet, but had Word, Excel , Microsoft, Photo editor, Publisher and Streets and Trips. By age 7 he was editor of a newsletter. By age 12 he had performed his first piano concerto with a symphony orchestra and was valedictorian at his high school's graduation.
He is now attending a U.S. News #1 ranked university on a full tuition academic scholarship.
When he was a child and a teen, he did not use twitter or facebook, and we did not play video games. He was busy designing a website for his parent's business and working as a radio engineer. He had a library card by age 5 and began taking college courses at age 16. He got a cell phone at age 18 (which was only used to call his parents or for work).
And yes, he has great social skills, is extremely popular, and he is a scratch golfer.
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages.
Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this.
They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility
then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side.
Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
Ralph Waldo Emerson from Self Reliance
