The Learning Leader – Quote #1

From The Learning Leader page 91 under the heading Challenging Educational Mythology:

In a profession that prides itself on rationality, education is strongly awash in mythology. Often the mythology has a tinge of truth or whisper of research, lending suficient credibility for a sound bite, but not enough evidence to sustain scrutiny.

The stories we need to tell to support 21st century education need to give examples of research based education — they need to be short, sweet, and easy to understand. David Warlick describes them here.

I challenge all of my colleagues in the edublogosphere to tell new stories that are not myths, but based on rigorous research that supports learning.

History and its Usefullness

I just started reading “An End To Suffering” by Pankaj Mishra. I’ve always been interested in Buddism and this book follows “the Budda’s life and his influence throught history.”

The opening quote of the book struck me and I just want to share it.

We need history, certainly, but we need it for reasons different from those for which the idler in the garden of knowledge needs it, even though he may look nobly down on our rough and charmless needs and requirements. We need it, that is to say, for the sake of life and action.

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche