What education is going to be about

Linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky on seeking what is significant:

You can't expect somebody to become a biologist by giving them access to the Harvard University biology library and saying, "Just look through it." That will give them nothing. The internet is the same, except magnified enormously.

...

The person who wins the Nobel Prize in biology is not the person who read the most journal articles and took the most notes on them. It's the person who knew what to look for.

Cultivating that capacity to seek what's significant, always willing to question whether you're on the right track, that's what education is going to be about, whether it's using computers and internet, or pencil and paper and books.

Source: The Purpose of Education (hat tip to James Clear and Bret Victor)

Alumni, Stephen Hawking AND Noam Chomsky

Alumni

Last week I spent a very pleasant evening attending a meeting of our 'old pupils' association'. Mr Gary Vincent is the chair of this association of former Stratford High School students (they were called pupils in the old days). The meeting was at his house and we were there planning the next reunion of former students. Every five years a committee from the association plans a reunion. It's a great idea and is very popular.

The evening made me think about a number of things:

• All of the students who have passed through SHS in the last 100 plus years and where they've gone;


• How our school is such a focal point in people's lives in the Stratford district;


• How one's school years generally are so much a fabric of our individual lives - even after 30, 40 or 50 years;


• Reunions that I've attended in the past at Mount Albert Grammar School (I was a student during the 50th in 1972 and a staff member for the 75th).


• The old friends network that I belong to;


• The communication spread that is possible these days;


• and what a nice cup of tea Gary made - really nice fragrance to it...
  
  

If you haven't seen the old friends site - here are the details: http://www.oldfriends.co.nz/ . There are over 1 million members now in New Zealand and more are added every day. That's impressive.

Stephen Hawking AND Noam Chomsky

I recently had a look at a couple of interesting websites and was shocked to realise that at a click of a button I could email Stephen Hawking AND Noam Chomsky. Yipes!! My finger quivered at the thought. I'm not sure why I haven't considered this possibility before, but imagine emailing either of these giants of the academic world. What on earth would you say?? While you consider that thought here are those sites: http://www.academia.edu/#/Universities/Cambridge_University/Departments/Applied_Mathematics_and_Theoretical_Physics for Stephen Hawking (The warning on his website - please bear in mind that it may take a while for you to receive a response and that due to the severe limitations that Stephen works under and the huge amount of mail he receives, he may not have time to respond - S.W.Hawking@damtp.cam.ac.uk ) and if you feel brave enough here is Mr Chomsky's contact chomsky@mit.edu

I don't know about you but...WOW. This is amazing! All thanks to the http://www.academia.edu/ website. Please let me know how you got on if you do make contact.