[amalcon]

He does have some good points, but they're drowned in nonsense. For example, he suggests that memorization is taught in lieu of problem solving because this is what society thinks is a smart person. Memorization is taught in lieu of problem solving, but it's because we haven't yet figured out a good way to teach problem solving. It's not some vast conspiracy; the outcome we actually want is just a really hard one.

[amackera]

I don't think that the author was implying the existence of a vast conspiracy to keep people dumb; rather, the author was suggesting that society is operating in a manner which he believes is suboptimal.

Let's say memorisation is taught in lieu of problem solving for the reasons you stated, then consequently the people who are good at memorisation become thought of as smart, since they do well academically. This, in turn, influences the education system to focus more on memorisation (though, of course, this is all hypothetical).

[amalcon]

Interestingly, "smart" is only equated with memorization in artificial situations (like academics and trivia shows). Case in point: if you ask people who's presently the smartest person in America, they might say the jeopardy guy (I actually suspect a lot of them would say Hawking). If you ask who's the smartest person in American history, the overwhelming response will probably be Einstein (except a few who will say Hawking, or -- very rarely -- Tesla). Einstein was a notorious problem-solver. Certainly, if you asked someone if they'd prefer their child to grow up to be like Einstein or like the Jeopardy guy, they'd probably pick Einstein.

Likewise, I don't think the author was implying any sort of conspiracy. I probably used the wrong word. I should have said that there's no real effort on anyone's part to promote memorization over problem-solving. Memorization is more prominent in these artificial situations because it's easier to train and test, rather than because people think it's superior.

[brutimus]

FYI: Hawking is British and teaches at University of Cambridge in England. :-)

[amalcon]

Right. Silly me. s/U.S./world/g, or go back in time 30 years or so and use Feynman.

[msluyter]

I agree to some extent, though I interpret "haven't yet figured out a good way to teach problem solving" as "haven't yet figured out how to quantify the unquantifiable." In other words, problem solving -- in the sense of creatively overcoming new challenges and not just plugging values into memorized formulas -- is probably impossible to measure and standardize.

I believe you really can teach things like analytical thinking, lateral thinking, creativity, etc... (I have a number of books on these subjects) but how do you measure them via standardized tests? You can't. And so our educational system measures what can be measured: recall, application of rote formulas, etc...

Even the ostensibly freer essay portion of the SAT suffers from this problem: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200403/katzman

[wtallis]

We most certainly do know how to teach problem solving. I do it all the time in my Boy Scout troop. Of course, exactly none of the methods I use would work in the context of a school classroom, but that's as much a critique of our schooling methods as it is of my teaching methods.