🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 25 Apr 1995, Donald E. Simanek wrote:
>
> One of the reasons we've had success in the history of ideas and in
> science, is that we have organized and comparmentalized knowledge, and we
> have encouraged specialization. To simply say 'everything is
> interdisciplinary' blurs important distinctions, and I think is
> counterproductive. What we need is talented, insightful and skilled
> specialists who are *also* generalists, and know enough of other fields
> to interact productively with them. That's essentially what we've been
> doing for many years, and it works. I have seen too many
> 'interdisciplinary' courses which are little more than overviews, and
> 'dummied down' surveys.

        It "works" for whom? A very limited number, perhaps 1 or 2
percent of the student population; the very brightest. Besides, if it
works, why all the fuss about the results of modern education? And can we
afford, financially and socially, to educate only a select few?
     I fear we teach inversely to the way people learn. An enormous
amount of educational research leads to the conclusion that the majority
of people learn from the concrete to the abstract. Why do we insist on
teaching in the other direction?

Fred