On 11/9/05, Shane Hathaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Let me tell you about an experiment I tried in college. I was having > trouble getting good grades, so I decided to give up my preferred method > of learning. Rather than work on coming to a real understanding of each > subject, I decided to memorize and regurgitate. I banned any original > thought from my mind. Since that decision, I got A's for two years > straight. I learned some useful things like active verbs, Communism, > and Descartes, but I don't feel like the theory stuck in my head as well > as it could have. Is that really learning? The institution certainly > encouraged my behavior.
Judging from the replies in this thread, it seems that when most people think of learning they think of learning languages, or AI, or some other computer based knowledge. Although this perspective is to be expected in a Linux users' group, interestingly there are Linux users who are not IT professionals or students. Therefore, I'm going to steer a little off topic, but not very far. I don't have that thought paradigm. I'm a physics student, and the reason your discussion about theory and application was provocative enough to muster my reply at all is that I look at it from the point of view of research. There are two basic kinds of research in physics: theoretical and experimental. The theoreticians do physics from the premises of unexplained phenomena, looking for a cohesive (and coherent :-), simple, often aesthetic model to explain the phenomena. Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Max Planck, and Albert Einstein are among the successful theoreticians. Experimental physicists do physics from the perspective of experimenting with nature in order to resolve unknowns and, usually accidentally, to discover new questions and new phenomena. Galileo Galilei, Michael Farady, Edwin Hubble, and Enrico Fermi are among the more notable experimental physicists. I agree that the System enforces a practical approach to Education as it is currently Formalized and that those with theoretical aptitudes for learning have to adapt or suffer. That, if not a tragedy, is a dissapointing failure in the way we educate each other. Justin -- Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
