They concluded that the ancillary benefits of “mental discipline” were “mythological” and that general skills, like memorization, were not nearly as transferable as had once been thought. “Pedagogues quickly realized that Thorndike’s experiments had undermined the rationale for the traditional curriculum,” writes the historian of education Diane Ra

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In the 1600s, John Amos Comenius, who is often referred to as “the grandfather of modern education” called schools “the slaughterhouse of the mind,” where he saw them devoted primarily to the boring and sometimes brutally-enforced study of Latin by “stuffing and flogging”. He went on to argue for education to follow “the lead of nature. A rational ... See more

Students need more exposure to the way everyday things work and are made.

“Making mathematics mandatory,” wrote Hacker, “prevents us from discovering and developing young talent. In the interest of maintaining rigor, we’re actually depleting our pool of brainpower.”

In a paper titled “A Mathematician’s Lament,” Paul Lockhart rails against the modern ... See more

The answer must lie in education somewhere. And if we look into research on different education strategies and their effectiveness, we do indeed see all sorts of debates about best practices, learning styles, class size, monetary policy, and equality. But mostly we see, actually, that none of it matters much.