alt Hacker NewsIt's been many decades since I read it, but there was some mention of this in Feynman's first autobiography (Surely You're Joking). He described learning about the problem and investigating the root cause, which is also described in this speech. (The root cause was a focus on the memorization of scattered facts vs. making students understand the subject matter.)
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This speech by Feynman was based on his experiences teaching Physics in Brazil in the 1950s (details mentioned in the "Surely You're Joking" book). "tomhow" has posted the link to a previous HN discussion specifically w.r.t. the Brazil experience.
However, this speech generalizes and posits that the problem is not specific to Latin America but to most countries (including so-called developed ones) in the teaching of Physics or any other Science.
Hence the opening para;
The problem of teaching physics in Latin America is only part of the wider problem of teaching physics anywhere. In fact, it is part of the problem of teaching anything anywhere – a problem for which there is no known satisfactory solution.
I think this is highly pertinent today given the use of AI/LLM models for extracting "correct answers" to all of settled (mostly) Science. At least with a textbook you had to expend some thought/effort; with AI tools even that is removed and you literally need know/understand even less than before.
So where does that leave Science Education? How do we reform the Education System?
Why do we expect school or university to teach „understanding”.
It is like teaching snowboarding. You can get the pointers but students have to actually do the snowboarding - there is no shortcut.
The same with knowledge and understanding, you can organize material so they don’t end up in unproductive rabbit holes - but they have to work out their understanding on their own.
Classroom setting is also not really good one unless you have small groups on the same level - larger group and you are just pulling slow ones up and fast ones are getting bored.