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by thomaslkjeldsen 2241 days ago
> I've got two boys in 3rd & 5th grade right now and I'm actively fighting with both of them the idea that "learning" is a matter of being told the correct answer and then they forever after know the correct answer in its every nuance.

So there is a difference between insisting on being right and acknowledging the possibility of being wrong.

However, this reminds me of the book "Factfulness" where Hans Rosling shows how most of us rely on outdated information (that we were taught decades ago) when asked about the current state of the world. We simply fail to update our knowledge.

The book is highly recommended.

1 comments

I think he goes further than that: even young people have outdated knowledge in accordance with some predictable biases. We rely on the information because it fits some narrative we believe about the world, not because we learnt it when it was correct 30 years ago.