Quotes

Richard Feynman on education in Brazil

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Some quotes from “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” talking about university education in Brazil:

After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students had memorized everything, but they didn’t know what anything meant.

I didn’t see how they were going to learn anything from that. Here he was talking about moments of inertia, but there was no discussion about how hard it is to push a door open when you put heavy weights on the outside, compared to when you put them near the hinge – nothing!

Finally, I said that I couldn’t see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything.

via Richard Feynman on education in Brazil

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Education and Neuroscience

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With new findings from neuroscience catching the headlines every day, surely we can tap into these results to improve our education system? The Education and Neuroscience Initiative hopes to address this question – this joint programme of work between the Wellcome Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) aims to: build research and expertise at the interface between neuroscience and education; support the responsible transfer of technologies, resources and practices based upon neuroscience into education; and help teachers to be able to make informed choices based upon the best available evidence. In this post we explain why we are embarking on this work, share some of the learning we’ve gained in the process, and we invite a wider conversation on this topic.

via ThInk : Education and Neuroscience.

Relevant: Education Endowment Foundation

“Smartness” and “Intelligence”

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Many people assume that superior intelligence or ability is a key to success. But more than three decades of research shows that an overemphasis on intellect or talent—and the implication that such traits are innate and fixed—leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unmotivated to learn.
Teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life.
Parents and teachers can engender a growth mind-set in children by praising them for their effort or persistence (rather than for their intelligence), by telling success stories that emphasize hard work and love of learning, and by teaching them about the brain as a learning machine.

source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids 

“If you continuously compete with others…

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“If you continuously compete with others, you become bitter, but if you continuously compete with yourself, you become better.”

“…no secrets to success…

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“There are no secrets to success: don’t waste time looking for them. Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty to those for whom you work, and persistence.” ~Colin Powell

You can do anything you put your mind into!