From: roger schank

From: roger schank To: jeffrey epstein <jeevacation®gmail.com> Subject: Fwd: Chapter 13 Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:30:45 +0000 in case you are interested; I sent my teaching chapter (that I sent to you yesterday) to a biology professor friend of mine (retired) ; here are his comments; they seem germane to me to what we were discussing today with pamay (who, even you will to have to admit, is smart) Begin forwarded message: From: Bill Purves Date: October 22. 2009 6:08:34 PM EDT (CA) To: Roger Schank <MI > Subject: Chapter 13 Okay, I read Ch. 13 pretty carefully this afternoon. As I recall, you're interested in what I think professors would think of it. Of course, I am by now more a Roger than a professor as far as "learning sciences" goes. And I've become an extreme pessimist about schools and learning other than on a small scale. Capitalism will have finished off the planet before really widespread significant change can occur in the world of learning. Your ideas are of course entertainingly and convincingly (to me) presented. At the college level (you DID say "professor," I think) there is growing recognition, at least in the sciences, that pounding home of facts is in fact a lousy way to "teach." I see a lot of evidence that they WANT to have students forming hypotheses, planning experimentation, conducting it, analyzing the results, communicating about them, etc., etc. Really... this idea IS out there and starting to be acted upon. Implementing it is still at a primitive stage, and they can't yet shake free of the idea that there IS a set of "facts" that every student MUST know. And GRADING looms as a major problem in many professors' minds. Quite a few (but far too few) would surely like to design a course or two with Chapter 13 as their guide. For most, it would be a major job, not particularly likely to be rewarded by their departments/colleges or by the market. (I just now paused for a moment to reflect on how the hell much work by how the hell many people went into designing each of the rotations in Health Sciences.) For this to work in real time we would need you cloned and available, probably in multiple copies, at universities all over the country to help with the implementation and coaching. The whole business is FAR more important with kids much younger than college students. From the age of reason, or at least by the earliest grammar school ages. Can you imagine our hordes of teachers who can really implement this with the number of kids they need to handle? But I DID say that I'm a mighty pessimist. But I DID enjoy reading Chapter 13. Let me know if there's anything I can try to help with. (I need to get the taste of my current little consulting gig out of my mouth--of all things, it's about books written to "help" kids EFTA00771929 with reading weaknesses get through HS bio. NO I'm not writing any such thing, but I'm the "tech expert" who is keeping them from filling students' heads with utter egregiously mistaken crap. Snarl...) And what a delightful coincidence, that VISTA looks so much like what you're talking about in this book! ;-) (bill) William K. Purves 9 Northampton Court Newport Beach CA 92660 phone: cell: email: EFTA00771930