Schools need to tap into the same sense of wonder that led early humans to seek a unifying narrative to explain their place in the world. And teachers need to make more of an effort to incorporate myths, jokes, and riddles into their curriculum and teaching practices from early grades through high school.
This is the argument made by Kieran Egan, a Canadian philosopher and longtime professor at Simon Fraser University who passed away in 2022. The scholar’s ideas are suddenly gaining traction in the technology and innovation worlds. blog post On a website popular among Silicon Valley insiders.
The blog is astral codex 10,It has been Explanation from the New York Times as “a window into the minds of the many technology leaders who are building our collective future.” ACX (as this blog is often called) hosts a book review contest every year, and the most recent winner is Egan’s summary of her 1997 book.The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding”
The argument in Egan’s book is difficult to summarize, but the gist is that the way schools teach is too disconnected from the way young people learn.
Brandon Hendrickson stumbled upon Egan’s work while pursuing a master’s degree in education at the University of Washington. Since then, he has delved into the scholar’s work and now writes a newsletter on Substack. lost learning tools I believe in the teachings of philosophers. And he spent months writing reviews of Egan’s books. The summary is over 23,000 words long.
“In recent decades, education reform has been driven by outdated ideas about human nature, human psychology, and human society,” Hendrickson said. “There is no culture without metaphors. There is no culture without songs and dances and rituals. And we need these things to come together as a group of people…They are the wheels of the human mind. It’s the big gear that turns the wheels.”
Citing Egan’s theory, Hendrickson argues that, much like the way bards once popularized Homeric myths (and the way Hollywood screenwriters enliven stories), teachers should do more to shape what they teach. I insist that we should make an effort. The idea is that material is most memorable when students can see it as part of a larger story, such as humans trying to overcome obstacles to survive.
“What he suggests is that we pay attention to how myths work as stories, so we can design intelligently vibrant history curricula,” Hendrickson wrote in a blog post. I’m writing this. “And myths are really special. Each myth is built on at least one binary opposition (weak vs. strong, lies vs. truth, etc.) and uses that to tell a complete picture of the world. They is so powerful that even if it never happened, people can understand it, remember it, and love it.”
To some, that may sound like edutainment, or a call for style over content in education.
But for Hendrickson, this theory focuses on a serious flaw in today’s education. Survey results show Pupils do not feel that what they are learning at school is important.
“It’s like we have an ‘important button’ in our heads,” he says. “If we think the lesson is important, the lesson itself doesn’t have to be that great. We strive to understand that. A lot of educational reform, especially cognitive science and science, which I really respect, The educational movement ignores the primacy of materiality. Ultimately, students must find something meaningful to them.”
Some commenters on Hendrickson’s review noted that many teachers already engage in playful interactions with students to keep them focused in class.
But Hendrickson said the reason his blog post has garnered so much attention is because “especially among people in Silicon Valley with kids, it’s hard to believe that children can enjoy wrestling with ideas and the joy of finding things.” This is because there is a pressing need for people to experience it.” The experience of this world is very interesting. ”And he and others worry that’s not happening enough in today’s schools.
EdSurge reached out to Hendrickon to learn more about what he learned from Egan’s ideas and how Oregon schools are trying to implement them.
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