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By Francis Wardle

Could today’s schools produce another Einstein?

As I read the new book on Einstein by Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe, I continually ask myself this question. As an educator, it is of great fascination and interest to me.

My conclusion, unfortunately, is no.

Not because of our current fixation on standards, incessant assessments and so-called accountability. It’s bigger than this: it’s a question of what we teach — the curriculum. And, no, it’s not a matter of “going back to the basics.”

Why did Einstein, a low-level bureaucrat working for the Swiss government, develop so many revolutionary ideas and theories (in 1905) when his compatriots in the most prestigious universities of North America and Europe could not? They were all wrestling with the same problems — light, quanta, time, space and gravity — and they all had access to the same data and read the same journal articles and lectures.

So, why was Einstein able to solve these problems and make such a giant leap in our scientific knowledge?

According to Isaacson, he did so because he was a visual, not a verbal or mathematical, thinker; he used thought experiments to solve his problems, not mathematical equations; he was instilled in a philosophy of deep skepticism; he had important practical experiences that directly related to the problems he was trying to solve; and by temperament he was a radical who delighted in challenging convention.

The educational implications of these factors are clear:

Visual thinker. As a result of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and the adoption of state standards, our schools today focus almost exclusively on literacy and math. At the least, they relegate the arts to electives and add-ons; at the worst, they have been eliminated altogether. Clearly we need to place the arts in the center of the curriculum.

Thought experiments. Einstein was an inductive thinker who manipulated ideas in his mind as he grappled with problems. He used visual images to create these dilemmas, and then went about solving them. His most famous visual image is the picture of someone running next to a light wave as he studied light; he also used an image of a person in a descending elevation when he studied gravity, and he visualized trains moving together when he studied time.

Einstein hated math; his math teacher called him “a lazy dog” because he missed most of his lectures. These facts suggest that we should actively teach visual thinking and creative problem-solving, and support more inductive problem-solving with less emphasis on math and the scientific method (deductive thinking).

Positivist philosophy. Einstein was a disciple of David Hume and other positivist philosophers whose philosophy grounded him in a healthy scientism that argued that if something cannot be observed, it must be doubted. This helped him discredit many of the ideas and conventions that were accepted at that time.

Educational implications would suggest that we teach philosophy and introspective thinking in our schools. Heaven forbid!

Practical experience. Einstein’s parents owned a company that built electrical generators and provided electricity for small towns. On occasion, Einstein would help his father and uncles work on improving the generators and other things electrical. This gave him important firsthand experience with electromagnetism, central to all of his theoretical work. Thus our current view of not providing meaningful vocational education in our nation’s schools is terribly misguided.

A nonconformist. In school Einstein refused to read the instructions for his physics lab. He dropped out of another school simply because he could not stand its authoritarian and repetitive approach to education. According to Isaacson, Einstein was by temperament a revolutionary thinker, while his contemporaries were conservative thinkers. As such, he liked to challenge both traditional, established professors, and old, cumbersome ideas and scientific “truths.”

Recognizing the value of “thinking outside the box” would require our schools to not only teach how to challenge accepted values and knowledge, but also to encourage this kind of behavior. Can you imagine high school students challenging our all-knowing state legislators who mandate the CSAP, or school administrators who claim to know what is best for them?

Clearly, then, we are going about education all wrong. I can just see our enlightened politicians including these ideas in the next revisions of our state and national standards.

Nah!

Francis Wardle has a Ph.D. in education and teaches for the University of Phoenix (online) and Red Rocks Community College.

READER COMMENTS

I have a 1st grader going into 2nd grade working at a 5th grade level in all areas.I interviewed a teacher that was supposed to be good. I told her what grade level my daughter was at and she loves math. I asked her if she could teach my daughter at her level in math. The teacher said,quote, " if you want her to learn higher math than 2nd grade you can teach her at home,I only teach the book. "

This is not acceptable to me. I don't want my child sitting in a dumbed down curriculum.She will be bored out of her mind!

I'm trying to get her skipped to 3rd grade ,but that's an uphill battle too. The school system thinks they know what is right for your child.
They only know how to teach an out of the box education.

They try harder to dumb down kids than they do to uplift them.
I am so sick of it.If my child was stupid she could get tutoring.If my child was Hispanic and didn't know English very well she would get lots of tutoring and support services.

Since she is very intelligent she gets nothing.

Who do you think is going to contribute more to society? Educated or uneducated?

Why should I have to teach my children at home and send them to school.I thought the school system was supposed to be teaching all kinds of students.

The principal is already balking at skipping her a grade.They won't hesitate to pass on many,many children onto the next grade level working much below that grade level.
I'm just not geting this school systems agenda.I thought they wanted bright,well behaved,parent involved,students.

I guess I'm wrong.Can someone tell me what the schools are there for?

Counting this post, only five responses to the good Dr.

Anyone else ever notice how people like him are great at spewing out their nonsense, yet never seem to find the time to respond to critical posts?

Moral cowardice I call it, but nothing new/unusual to folks like him.

So, Francis Wardle thinks we should change our school system to accomodate .001% of the students and throw the remaining 99.999% of the students by the wayside in hopes of finding the next Einstein. That's pretty much been the thinking of the U.S. school system over the last 40 years. Let's give a really poor education to the majority of students in hopes of finding one jewel, while the average U.S. student continues to fall in international contests despite being second in the world in spending per student. Spend a lot of money to get no results has been our mantra. This article is asking for more money with even less results. Einsteins are born, not made by the educational system.

The public shool system isn't set up to nourish the minds of smart and free thinking children.
When they find one it is their mission to reel them back into the stay within the lines,out of the box education.
Highly intelligent children are not allowed to grow at their own level.They are forced down to the level of the majority in the class.
This is the sad state of our public schools.
I know because I've been fighting the school system against dumbing down my children.
It is a battle and I will not give up!

Leave it to an "educrat" to conclude that the school system 'produces' Einsteins.

We need fewer PHD'S in education and more people with real world experience.

Oh yeah, and we need to make illegal the very idea that a "teachers union" is dedicated to anything but it's own advancement. It sickens me to no end when that line about "No one knows education better" is used as part of a 'give us more money' campaign!!

The school system didn't create Einstein. Much of his knowledge came from his own studies.

In fact, he was so bored in school that he actually failed math.

Perhaps you need to read a different book.

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